Dozens killed seeking aid in Gaza as Israel weighs further military action
Another 25 people, including several women and children, were killed in Israeli airstrikes, according to local hospitals in Gaza. The military said it only targets Hamas militants.
The latest deaths came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to announce further military action — and possibly plans for Israel to fully reoccupy Gaza. Experts say Israel's ongoing military offensive and blockade are already pushing the territory of some 2 million Palestinians into famine. A new UN report said only 1.5 percent of Gaza's cropland is accessible and undamaged.
Another escalation of the nearly 22-month war could put the lives of countless Palestinians and around 20 living Israeli hostages at risk, and would draw fierce opposition both internationally and within Israel. Netanyahu's far-right coalition allies have long called for the war to be expanded, and for Israel to eventually take over Gaza, relocate much of its population and rebuild Jewish settlements there.
US President Donald Trump, asked by a reporter Tuesday whether he supported the reoccupation of Gaza, said he wasn't aware of the 'suggestion' but that 'it's going to be pretty much up to Israel.' Of the 38 Palestinians killed while seeking aid, at least 28 died in the Morag Corridor, an Israeli military zone in southern Gaza where UN convoys have been repeatedly overwhelmed by looters and desperate crowds in recent days, and where witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire.
The Israeli military said troops fired warning shots as Palestinians advanced toward them, and that it was not aware of any casualties.
Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies, said another four people were killed in the Teina area, on a route leading to a site in southern Gaza run by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an American contractor. The Al-Awda Hospital said it received the bodies of six people killed near a GHF site in central Gaza.
GHF said there were no violent incidents at or near its sites, and that the one in central Gaza was not open on Wednesday. It said the violence may have been related to the chaos around UN convoys.
Two of the Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza City, in the north of the territory, killing 13 people there, including six children and five women, according to the Al-Ahli Hospital, which received the bodies.
The Israeli military says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because its militants are entrenched in heavily populated areas.
Israel facilitated the establishment of four GHF sites in May after blocking the entry of all food, medicine and other goods for 2 1/2 months. Israeli and US officials said a new system was needed to prevent Hamas from siphoning off humanitarian aid.
The UN, which has delivered aid to hundreds of distribution points across Gaza throughout the war when conditions allow, has rejected the new system, saying it forces Palestinians to travel long distances and risk their lives for food, and that it allows Israel to control who gets aid, potentially using it to advance plans for further mass displacement.
The UN human rights office said last week that some 1,400 Palestinians have been killed seeking aid since May, mostly near GHF sites but also along UN convoy routes where trucks have been overwhelmed by crowds. It says nearly all were killed by Israeli fire.
This week, a group of UN special rapporteurs and independent human rights experts called for the GHF to be disbanded, saying it is 'an utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law.' The experts work with the UN but do not represent the world body.
The GHF called their statement 'disgraceful,' and urged the UN and other aid groups to work with it 'to maximize the amount of aid being securely delivered to the Palestinian people in Gaza.' The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots when crowds threatened its forces, and GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray and fired into the air on some occasions to prevent deadly crowding at its sites.
Israel's air and ground war has destroyed nearly all of Gaza's food production capabilities, leaving its people reliant on international aid.
A new report by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN satellite center found that just 8.6 percent of Gaza's cropland is still accessible following sweeping Israeli evacuation orders in recent months. Just 1.5 percent is accessible and undamaged, it said.
The military offensive and a breakdown in security have made it nearly impossible for anyone to safely deliver aid, and aid groups say recent Israeli measures to facilitate more assistance are far from sufficient.
Hospitals recorded four more malnutrition-related deaths over the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 193 people, including 96 children, since the war began in October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Jordan said Israeli settlers blocked roads and hurled stones at a convoy of four trucks carrying aid bound for Gaza after they drove across the border into the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli far-right activists have repeatedly sought to halt aid from entering Gaza.
Jordanian government spokesperson Mohammed al-Momani condemned the attack, which he said had shattered the windshields of the trucks, according to the Jordanian state-run Petra News Agency.
The Israeli military said security forces went to the scene to disperse the gathering and accompanied the trucks to their destination.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and abducted another 251. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals. Of the 50 still held in Gaza, around 20 are believed to be alive.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed over 61,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians but says around half were women and children. It is part of the now largely defunct Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The UN and independent experts consider it the most reliable source for the number of war casualties. (AP)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Korea Herald
3 days ago
- Korea Herald
Dozens killed seeking aid in Gaza as Israel weighs further military action
At least 38 Palestinians were killed overnight and into Wednesday in the Gaza Strip while seeking aid from UN convoys and sites run by an Israeli-backed American contractor, according to local health officials. The Israeli military said it had fired warning shots when crowds approached its forces. Another 25 people, including several women and children, were killed in Israeli airstrikes, according to local hospitals in Gaza. The military said it only targets Hamas militants. The latest deaths came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to announce further military action — and possibly plans for Israel to fully reoccupy Gaza. Experts say Israel's ongoing military offensive and blockade are already pushing the territory of some 2 million Palestinians into famine. A new UN report said only 1.5 percent of Gaza's cropland is accessible and undamaged. Another escalation of the nearly 22-month war could put the lives of countless Palestinians and around 20 living Israeli hostages at risk, and would draw fierce opposition both internationally and within Israel. Netanyahu's far-right coalition allies have long called for the war to be expanded, and for Israel to eventually take over Gaza, relocate much of its population and rebuild Jewish settlements there. US President Donald Trump, asked by a reporter Tuesday whether he supported the reoccupation of Gaza, said he wasn't aware of the 'suggestion' but that 'it's going to be pretty much up to Israel.' Of the 38 Palestinians killed while seeking aid, at least 28 died in the Morag Corridor, an Israeli military zone in southern Gaza where UN convoys have been repeatedly overwhelmed by looters and desperate crowds in recent days, and where witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire. The Israeli military said troops fired warning shots as Palestinians advanced toward them, and that it was not aware of any casualties. Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies, said another four people were killed in the Teina area, on a route leading to a site in southern Gaza run by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an American contractor. The Al-Awda Hospital said it received the bodies of six people killed near a GHF site in central Gaza. GHF said there were no violent incidents at or near its sites, and that the one in central Gaza was not open on Wednesday. It said the violence may have been related to the chaos around UN convoys. Two of the Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza City, in the north of the territory, killing 13 people there, including six children and five women, according to the Al-Ahli Hospital, which received the bodies. The Israeli military says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because its militants are entrenched in heavily populated areas. Israel facilitated the establishment of four GHF sites in May after blocking the entry of all food, medicine and other goods for 2 1/2 months. Israeli and US officials said a new system was needed to prevent Hamas from siphoning off humanitarian aid. The UN, which has delivered aid to hundreds of distribution points across Gaza throughout the war when conditions allow, has rejected the new system, saying it forces Palestinians to travel long distances and risk their lives for food, and that it allows Israel to control who gets aid, potentially using it to advance plans for further mass displacement. The UN human rights office said last week that some 1,400 Palestinians have been killed seeking aid since May, mostly near GHF sites but also along UN convoy routes where trucks have been overwhelmed by crowds. It says nearly all were killed by Israeli fire. This week, a group of UN special rapporteurs and independent human rights experts called for the GHF to be disbanded, saying it is 'an utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law.' The experts work with the UN but do not represent the world body. The GHF called their statement 'disgraceful,' and urged the UN and other aid groups to work with it 'to maximize the amount of aid being securely delivered to the Palestinian people in Gaza.' The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots when crowds threatened its forces, and GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray and fired into the air on some occasions to prevent deadly crowding at its sites. Israel's air and ground war has destroyed nearly all of Gaza's food production capabilities, leaving its people reliant on international aid. A new report by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN satellite center found that just 8.6 percent of Gaza's cropland is still accessible following sweeping Israeli evacuation orders in recent months. Just 1.5 percent is accessible and undamaged, it said. The military offensive and a breakdown in security have made it nearly impossible for anyone to safely deliver aid, and aid groups say recent Israeli measures to facilitate more assistance are far from sufficient. Hospitals recorded four more malnutrition-related deaths over the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 193 people, including 96 children, since the war began in October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Jordan said Israeli settlers blocked roads and hurled stones at a convoy of four trucks carrying aid bound for Gaza after they drove across the border into the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli far-right activists have repeatedly sought to halt aid from entering Gaza. Jordanian government spokesperson Mohammed al-Momani condemned the attack, which he said had shattered the windshields of the trucks, according to the Jordanian state-run Petra News Agency. The Israeli military said security forces went to the scene to disperse the gathering and accompanied the trucks to their destination. Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and abducted another 251. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals. Of the 50 still held in Gaza, around 20 are believed to be alive. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed over 61,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians but says around half were women and children. It is part of the now largely defunct Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The UN and independent experts consider it the most reliable source for the number of war casualties. (AP)
![[Cory Franklin] Try to adapt to weather extremes](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwimg.heraldcorp.com%2Fnews%2Fcms%2F2025%2F08%2F03%2Fnews-p.v1.20250803.d52c7ce8fd294cb3b62c18cc224b3831_T1.jpg&w=3840&q=100)
Korea Herald
6 days ago
- Korea Herald
[Cory Franklin] Try to adapt to weather extremes
When it comes to reporting on the comparative health of nations, there is ample bias in the national and international press about American shortcomings. Some of it is justified -- disproportionate numbers of obesity and firearm deaths are usually cited by medical and nonmedical sources, as well as the relatively high infant mortality. But no less important are environmental deaths, specifically those related to hot and cold weather, which are rarely cited. The US figures are far more impressive than those of the rest of the industrialized world, and it is inarguable that this country does a much better job of preventing heat and cold deaths than Europe does. First, heat deaths: Comparisons of heat deaths between countries are limited because numbers vary according to how heat deaths are defined, the differences in weather and patient characteristics in various countries, and the sources of the data. The numbers here are a compendium from several sources, including Lancet, Nature and several public health and weather websites; mileage may vary. Taking all this into account, the difference in annual heat deaths between Europe and the US is surprising: In the 21st century, European heat deaths on average range from 60 to 200 per 1 million people annually, while American heat deaths average about three to eight per million annually. This means, conservatively, each year, perhaps 20 times as many people die of the heat in Europe as in the US. A graphic example: During the recent European heat wave that began in May, one country, Spain, experienced 1,180 deaths in only two months. The data from deaths due to cold weather are even more sobering. Even with a warming Earth, cold continues to kill more people than heat in most parts of the world where there is any kind of cold winter. In Europe, there have been 300 to 500 deaths per million due to cold annually in the past three decades, while in the US, the number of deaths from cold is in the range of 10 per million. So a conservative estimate would be that for every person who dies as a result of cold weather in the US, at least 30 die in Europe. When deaths from heat and cold are combined, Europe has close to 50 times as many deaths as the US -- as many as 250,000 to 500,000 more deaths every year. Over a decade, this means several million more people die from heat and cold in Europe than die in the US from those causes. A comparison of the annual numbers shows that the difference in environmental deaths easily surpasses the much more widely reported firearm death comparison. The US has nearly 50,000 firearm deaths annually, and Europe has under 10,000, so the difference in firearm deaths, roughly 40,000, is about 1/10th of the difference in environmental deaths. Why is there such a difference in environmental deaths between the US and Europe? The consensus among experts regarding heat deaths is the ubiquity of air conditioning in the US and the relative paucity in Europe. (The majority of deaths in Spain during the May-June heat wave were in the north of the country, where air conditioning is uncommon compared to the south.) Besides providing comfort, air conditioning saves lives -- often many -- especially if air conditioning could be made more available in the Global South, where there are even more deaths due to hot weather. Despite the consensus, some environmentalists want to limit air conditioning, citing increased electricity use and carbon dioxide production, which will aggravate greenhouse gas emissions. (In 2022, Spain was one of the countries that put restrictions on air conditioning.) The response to climate change must involve a combination of mitigation, such as reducing levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases and adaptation -- that is, adapting to the consequences of a warming environment. According to Hannah Ritchie, deputy editor of the Our World in Data website, air conditioning currently accounts for about 7 percent of global electricity use and 3 percent of carbon dioxide emissions -- not negligible but certainly not exorbitant considering how many lives cooling technology saves. While worldwide air conditioning use is expected to increase in the next decade, so is the efficiency of air conditioning units. Air conditioning represents one of the most effective and lifesaving methods of adaptation to a changing climate. The reasons for increased cold-weather deaths in Europe relative to the US are harder to divine, but likely include the ubiquity of older homes with poorer insulation throughout Europe. Outside of Scandinavia, there may be less preparedness and an aging population more vulnerable to cold weather snaps on the European continent. Human-made efforts to reduce greenhouse gases are essential, but human-made efforts to adapt to weather extremes would have lifesaving consequences more immediately.
Korea Herald
30-07-2025
- Korea Herald
'Worst-case scenario of famine' is happening in Gaza, food crisis experts warn
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The 'worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip,' the leading international authority on food crises said in a new alert Tuesday, predicting 'widespread death' without immediate action. The alert, still short of a formal famine declaration, follows an outcry over images of emaciated children in Gaza and reports of dozens of hunger-related deaths after nearly 22 months of war. International pressure led Israel over the weekend to announce measures, including daily humanitarian pauses in fighting in parts of Gaza and airdrops. The UN and Palestinians on the ground say little has changed, and desperate crowds continue to overwhelm delivery trucks before they reach their destinations. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, said Gaza has teetered on the brink of famine for two years, but recent developments have 'dramatically worsened' the situation, including 'increasingly stringent blockades' by Israel. A formal famine declaration, which is rare, requires the kind of data that the lack of access to Gaza, and mobility within, has largely denied. The IPC has only declared famine a few times — in Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and parts of Sudan's western Darfur region last year. But independent experts say they don't need a formal declaration to know what they're seeing in Gaza. 'Just as a family physician can often diagnose a patient she's familiar with based on visible symptoms without having to send samples to the lab and wait for results, so too we can interpret Gaza's symptoms. This is famine,' Alex de Waal, author of 'Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine' and executive director of the World Peace Foundation, told The Associated Press. An area is classified as in famine when all three of the following conditions are confirmed: At least 20 percent of households have an extreme lack of food, or are essentially starving. At least 30 percent of children six months to 5 years old suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they're too thin for their height. And at least two people or four children under 5 per 10,000 are dying daily due to starvation or the interaction of malnutrition and disease. The report is based on available information through July 25 and says the crisis has reached 'an alarming and deadly turning point.' It says data indicate that famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of Gaza — at its lowest level since the war began — and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City. The report says nearly 17 out of every 100 children under the age of 5 in Gaza City are acutely malnourished. Mounting evidence shows 'widespread starvation.' Essential health and other services have collapsed. One in three people in Gaza is going without food for days at a time, according to the World Food Program. Hospitals report a rapid increase in hunger-related deaths in children under 5. Gaza's population of over 2 million has been squeezed into increasingly tiny areas of the devastated territory. 'This is not a warning. It is a reality unfolding before our eyes,' UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said in a statement on the new report, adding that the 'trickle of aid must become an ocean.' The IPC alert calls for immediate and large-scale action and warns: 'Failure to act now will result in widespread death in much of the strip.' Humanitarian workers agreed. 'If we don't have the conditions to react to this mass starvation, we will see this exponential rise," said Rachael Cummings, humanitarian director for Save the Children International, based in Gaza. "So we will see thousands and potentially tens of thousands of people die in Gaza. That is preventable.' She described children digging through trash piles outside their office, looking for food. Anything less than a ceasefire and a return to the UN-led aid system in place before Israel's blockade in early March 'is policymakers condemning tens of thousands of people in Gaza to death, starvation and disease,' said Rob Williams, CEO for War Child Alliance. 'All of the children who are currently malnourished will die. That is, unless there's an absolutely rapid and consistent reversal of what is happening," said Dr. Tarek Loubani, medical director for Glia, based in Gaza. Israel has restricted aid to varying degrees throughout the war. In March, it cut off the entry of all goods, including fuel, food and medicine, to pressure Hamas to free hostages. Israel eased those restrictions in May but also pushed ahead with a new US-backed aid delivery system that has been wracked by chaos and violence. The traditional, UN-led aid providers say deliveries have been hampered by Israeli military restrictions and incidents of looting, while criminals and hungry crowds swarm entering convoys. While Israel says there's no limit on how many aid trucks can enter Gaza, UN agencies and aid groups say even the latest humanitarian measures are not enough to counter the worsening starvation. 'The fastest and most effective way to save lives right now is to open every border crossing,' Tjada D'Oyen McKenna, head of Mercy Corps. the international relief agency, said in a statement Tuesday. Aid groups call the airdrops ineffective and dangerous, saying they deliver less aid than trucks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said no one is starving in Gaza and that Israel has supplied enough aid throughout the war, 'otherwise, there would be no Gazans.' Israel's closest ally now appears to disagree. 'Those children look very hungry,' President Donald Trump said Monday.
